In article X_CdnZatfeACBkvFnZ2dnUU7-
, lcb11211@swbelldotnet
says...

On 3/25/2017 12:26 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 25 Mar 2017 00:38:38 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article eclbdc1r3l4l8nm3cvmop230gg6tkmclrq@
4ax.com, says...

On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 21:34:37 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article jvcbdctuaks93ea6b2cbfkpc160iu2rbnd@
4ax.com, says...

On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 17:40:09 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 3/24/2017 8:14 AM, wrote:

Yep - the bullet holes were put there by the owner.
and he saved one for himself.

haha

apparently and believe or not they are sought after

in good condition they even get a pretty good price

That's because one in good condition has always been exceedingly rare,
even when they were new (owned a '71 Gremlin - the most appropriately
named car in history).

I worked for a short time for an AMC dealer back in '72, and they were
actually pretty good cars when compared to products from GM. Ford, and
Chrysler at the same time. One big problem with the gremy and hornet
was the latch pins breaking out of the doorposts after the hinge pins
wore out or sagged.. They had pretty well solved the rocker arm oiling
issue on the 232 by that time. The 258 was a better motor for the car
- and the 340 was AWSOME. There was a dealer in Mesa Arizona that put
the 401 AMX engine in the Grem. - Randall Motors XR401.
There were quite a few 360s transplanted into Grems too -
They were HAIRY!!!!


My brother had "The Machine" when we were teenagers.
It was geared so low that I could accidently take off in 3rd gear
when being a careful designated driver - feathering the clutch
because I wasn't accustomed to the car .. half way through
the intersection I would realize that I didn't need to shift quite
yet. :-)

I had a 72 Vega GT. I'll wait for the laughing to stop. ;!)

From a stop I could spin the tires starting in second gear.

Not with the stock aluminum 4 cyl unless you are running real skinny
tires at high pressure. Even a Cosworth would be stresses to get much
rubber in second with decent tires.
Now something like a 1.0 liter Chevy Sprint or Pontiac Firefly with a
35+ lb flywheel COULD break 'em loose if you dumped the clutch at
about half throttle - just the inertia of the flywheel produced
significantly more instantaneous torque than the engine - - - But they
didn't spin for long.

What was annoying was a small block V-8 with
powerglide and a high ratio rear end. My
mothers Olds would burn rubber at the drop of a
hat--if there was even the slightest bit of
moisture on the road it was difficult to get it
to start moving. Finally caught up with me one
rainy afternoon--went to cross an intersection,
nothing in sight as far as I could see in either
direction, and there I was a quarter of the way
across spinning the wheel like all getout and
not moving at all when some guy hit me. Of
course the cop thought I had run the stop sign
and there was no convincing him otherwise.
That was more a function of really crappy tires than horsepower -
particularly going through a "slip and slide powerglide" - and to the
best of my knowlege NO oldsmobile came from the factory with a
powerglide.. By the time GM was putting "corporate' engines into
Oldsmobiles the "powerslide" was history - The chevy smallblock first
arrived in Olds cars in about 1977. the last Powerglide slush pump was
built in 1973. Olds used Hydra-Matic transmissions - and the 3 speed
Turbo Hydra-matic replaced the 2 speed Powerglide in Chevies. by 1974.

Replacing the powerglide with a TH250 in an early Chevy 11 Nova made a
HUGE performance improvement..

Thank you for providing a Mona Lisa Vito-worthy
automotive infodump. However Mona's boyfriend
would have first ascertained such particulars as
he could before turning Miss Vito loose on the
court. And in this case it was a 1968 Cutlass.

However I do see the source of my confusion, I
did not realize that GM had foisted two
DIFFERENT 2-speed automatic abominations on the
world. As for the "corporate" engine, no, it
did not have a Chevrolet engine, it had
Oldsmobile's quite adequate 350--"small block"
is not restricted to Chevrolet.

I agree that the tires were at least part of the
issue, however after that relatively minor
fender bender (one tiny piece of trim on the
Olds bent) my mother decided to sell it instead
of doing something sensible like putting a set
of Michelins on it.

That critter had a "jet-away" transmission -which had a dual stage
converter - also called a "switch pitch" which made it act more like a
3 or 4 speed automatic than a powerglide. - it had 2 planetary ratios
and 2 converter "ratios". Thepowerglide has 2 planetary ratios and
that's all.

The Jet-away WOULD burn the tires with a 350 rocket if it was set up
right. It would start in low with the highg pitch converter, then
"upshift" the converter, before finally shifting into high (sometimes
downshifting the converter to give the effect of a 4 speed )
The car would have had E or F78-14 tires from the factory

In 68, it probably had 7.35 or 7.75 tires. E78-F78. ;~) I was in the
tire business in the early 70's when the switch to the letter rated
sizing began to happen. When working PT for the tire store, in 72, I
had to learn to convert the old style sizing to the letter sizing. And
that did not last long, I went through the same thing when going to the
metric sizing change around 1977.

Oddly the sizing went full circle, back to the approximate width of the
tread, except it went metric instead of inches. Approximate because
every manufacturer has a different start and end point for the width
measurement.




(roughly a
200-70 in P Metric) G78 or H70 tires would hold a lot better,
particularly with the right rubber, and a lot of guys used L70-14 or
L60-15s on the w31 and 442. Belteds stuck better than straight bias
plies - Firestone Wide Ovals were popular - and BF Goodrich TAs were a
good upgrade with a lot better traction.


It's amazing what aspect ratio does to
appearance. My Jeep has 16 inch wheels and they
look like great huge things. My electric has 17
inch and with that tiny bit of rubber around
them they look tiny.